SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“Christians must embody the struggle for holiness in every dimension of their lives and support one another as they pursue the difficult journey to the life of the Kingdom….each of our lives should be seen as a quest or a pilgrimage, which can only be understood in terms of a narrative. Our life-journey is a life-story.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters, Joseph Pearce) “Life in Christ is thus not a journey that happens with angels and demons on the periphery. Rather, it means that He re

“Why is it that in moments when sorrow seems unbearable to us, and we are balancing on the verge of despair, that we can’t feel that strengthening Right Hand of the Lord, which as we’ve heard many times preserves everything in His power. Maybe because we ourselves in these hard moments find ourselves doing something not exactly right? Maybe we ourselves don’t go to where this support is being obtained? We do not want to raise even a small spiritual labor, expecting that such

“Freedom is a paradox. It is an utterly inherent part of our existence – a critical part of our salvation – and yet threatening in its power. Freedom of the self can seem a threat to every kind of order (religious, political, social, etc.). Nevertheless, we are told in Scripture that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (freedom)” (2 Corinthians 3:17). St. Paul will also warn in his letter to the Galatians (5:13) that our liberty should not be used as an excuse

“Unfortunately, the spirit of moralism which we mentioned earlier, i.e., basing the Christian life on moral improvement, has adversely influenced the piety and spirituality of Christians to a significant degree even here in our land…Guidance that only aims for moral improvement is anthropocentric - it is centered on man, and in it, human effort dominates, and not the Grace of God. It then seems as if it is our own morality that saves us, and not the Grace of God. Life under t

“While very detailed instructions are given for other elements of sacrificial rituals, none are given for the means of killing the animals involved. To sacrifice something is not to kill it, but to eat it as a sacred meal. This required its death, whether the sacrifice was of animals or plants (such as first fruits from the harvest and grain offerings).” (Fr. Stephen De Young) “…the empty formalism of ritual sacrifices will not make up for sin. Perfunctory religious practices

“Throw out of your head the idea that you can, through a comfortable life, become what you must be in Christ!...We think as humans, and God thinks differently—there is a deep meaning in His actions, aimed above all at the salvation of our souls. For example, we often think, “This is my place, I feel comfortable here, and it is here that I can attain salvation.” But the Lord sees everything differently and puts us in circumstances that seem very unpleasant to us, but it is thi

“Christ points later in St. John’s Gospel as He gives up His life on the Cross, saying, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The Greek verb here used by St. John is the same verb used in Genesis 2:1 at the completion of the work of Creation, leading to God’s rest. Christ, therefore, rests in the Tomb on the seventh day of the week, fulfilling the Sabbath. In three days He completes the work of Creation, rising again on the first day of the week. The Sabbath was, thereby, fulfilled.

“Fasting needn’t be limited to abstinence from food alone, because true fasting is departure from evil deeds. Forgive your neighbor any insult, abstain from causing your neighbor offence, abstain from irritation, from senseless sorrows, from fear, wrath, and so on. ‘True fasting is alienation from evil, temperance of the tongue, setting aside of wrath, casting out of lust, idle talk, lies, and oath-breaking’…This is a true and pleasing fast for the Lord. Departing from these

“Sonic seeds of teeming individualism…now chokes new growth on both side of Christian divide…The path of “each man for himself” or “by myself” is the road to destruction. It is much easier the roaring lion, who walks about seeking whom he may devour, to destroy us one by one than to confront a united flock. Only by bearing one another’s burdens can we become like Christ, who bore the burdens of the whole world—and thereby enter into that joy which God has prepared for those w

“The way to a pure heart and the way to see God are actually the same thing. We have to have the eyes to see purity and beauty…We are to look for that which is pure, beautiful, lovely, godly, holy and readily visible in the world. Then we’ll begin to see purity, beauty, love, holiness, and even God Himself.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh) “In the Biblical and Patristic understanding, the “heart” (Hebrew: leb; Greek: kardia) is the deep center of the human personality, where the spirit, the